Here are some highlights: In the memoir, Mottola recalls first hearing Carey singing backup on a demo recording in his car on the way home. "An unbelievable energy was running through me," he writes, "screaming, 'Turn the car around! That may be the best voice you've ever heard in your life!'"

Mottola reveals that his therapist advised him not to pursue his young protégée romantically. But he was undeterred. "You don't understand!" he'd tell his shrink, according to the book. "Mariah is going to be the biggest star in the world. She's going to be as big as Michael Jackson."

In 1991, and at the age of 21, Carey’s debut sold 15 million copies making it the best-selling album of the year. She wanted to take a break, to have a minute to enjoy her success, but Mottola felt she needed to keep working. "My feeling was that there'd be plenty of time for Mariah to celebrate just a little ways down the road," he writes. "I'm not talking 10 years, just a few."

And here's a doozy: When Mottola escorted Carey to her first-ever Grammy ceremony, where she won two awards, he felt vindicated. Because his shrink was probably watching.

"I can only now wonder about the expression on my therapist’s face when . . . she saw Mariah thank God for that first Grammy, and then Tommy Mottola for believing in her," he writes. "She could no longer call me delusional."

Carey left Mottola in 1997 and has described her marriage as "a private hell." Mottola sort of apologizes: "If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologize. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success."

Most Popular

Photo of the day

In case you haven’t heard, as part of the incredibly popular Fenty Beauty Collection, Rihanna is launching a new line of lipsticks, and we want EVERY shade. Although we have to wait a bit for them to drop, we can see a coupleteasers before then. In one photo SZAgorgeously models a dark green shade called Midnight Wasabi. Can it be December 26th, already?!